I’m sorry, this is going to be a wall of text and a lot of it will be me justifying my choices because I feel very guilty and unworthy of pet ownership. She has never been abused, but I wasn’t the most responsible pet owner. But I love her dearly and we’ve grown up together and this is a hard place to be and I want to make sure I’m considering everything to ensure that I make the right decision for her, myself, my husband and our financial wellbeing.
I’ve got a 9 year old cat that is disabled but very high functioning. Her front right arm got injured when she was 3 and was hit by a car. She was taken to the vet, developed neuropathy and adapted by hopping. She can run faster than me and she can jump 5ft at least.
She’s always been very strong willed and a notorious door dasher. As a kitten/teen she was a screamer, yowler and even got me evicted once. She was fixed. Lol
She’s a very cuddly, people loving cat who always greeted people at the door and quite chatty. She’s a Bombay Burmese (fancy way of saying domestic black cat) and she HATES the vet. She thrashes, hisses, growls, swats, bites...only at the vet. So it makes it very difficult to get treatment when things get funky.
She has her FVRC, Rabies and FeLV shots.
Now to cut the the chase.
My cat is sick and being inconsistent. She has been to the vet 3 times in the last week and had a blood panel done and she is severely anemic and both red and white blood counts are low. After discussing it with a new vet (the one she’s familiar with isn’t there this week) we decided that if she continues to decline we will put her to sleep.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that part of this is for financial reasons...I didn’t get her insured when she was a kitten, I was young, naive and irresponsible. The bone marrow test will be $1000, chest and shoulder X-ray $700 and we’ve already incurred $500 in vet visits and the blood work to find out exactly what the cause of her condition is. $2,200 just for a diagnosis for a condition that is almost inevitably fatal.
Now that I’ve justified that part...she’s weak and her upper arm/shoulder is collapsing on the ground when she walks because she’s weak. It looks like it hurts. Initially, we thought she sprained it, the vet couldn’t find any swelling or signs of pain, but commented that adrenaline is a real thing.
At the lowest point, she hid under the bed, wasn’t greeting me at the door at 4:45 and crying to be fed, couldn’t tell if she was drinking water. I caught her eating her cat litter.she wasn’t able to make the jump onto the bed by herself. So we caged her to encourage her arm to heal (as we’ve done in the past and as instructed by the vet) and she was happy in there for nearly a week. She had her bed, food and litterbox in there and she could see out the window.
She declined and I took her to the vet again and I think she hurt herself further while getting blood taken from her. She was really upset. The vet tech legit seemed upset after the encounter and they gave me gabopentin to give to her for a second attempt at blood work. The second time a new vet simply came, took the carrier. I could hear my cat hissing and growling in the room (yes she had the gabopentin). A lady commented that “she’s more fierce than Beyoncé”. We got home, I had to take the bandages off, another battle of growling and hissing. This has been daily since meds became a part of her life. It’s rough.
Now, we got the results back about severe anemia and were told that it’s strongly recommended that we do the bone marrow test to see if her cells are reproducing.
But after googling the condition severe anemia and hemolysis it looks like we’re facing cancer, feline lukemia (she is vaccinated though) and only have 4 options and none of which will improve her quality of life.
Now here is the thing. She’s improving. Yesterday, she wanted to stay in her kennel, but she was eating, drinking and using her litterbox.
Today, she met me at the top of the stairs, wanted her dinner, drank water and cuddled with my husband. We have a date set for Sunday to put her down and at this rate I don’t want to keep it.
So here are my options... 1. Subject the cat to traumatic vet visits for the duration of her diagnosis, incur $2,200+ on the process and possibly enable her to injure herself further. Then continue the cycle with drugs and administering them.
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Let her be and see if she improves and then reconsider when she gets seriously ill again. (The 2nd vet said her advice wasn’t to ignore it again)
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Repeat the past process and get a third opinion
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Put her down before she gets seriously sick.
Does anyone have any advice for me? I don’t want to be shamed or treated like a irresponsible pet owner for asking these questions. I just need to know how to move forward and keep my and her head above water while we get through this.
She’s back hiding in her kennel again.
I don’t know how to proceed. The right choice was advised against by the vet and it’s causing serious conflict.
Thank you.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/bjo7zn/help_when_is_it_time_cat/
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